Friday, October 25

Rafts, Pods and Thunders * of Hippopotami

* all collective names for hippo

The call of the common hippopotamus
(Hippopotamus amphibius) is one of those unique African sounds that
reverberates through my whole being. The local languages have lovely
onomatopoeic names for the hippo - Luvuvhu and Mvuvhu being some of
the best ones.

The hippo is high on the list of
animals to see for many visitors to Africa, and misconceptions about
the hippo abound.

Let me put you straight:-

It is NOT cute or cuddly, but is
fierce, aggressive and dangerous

It is NOT slow or passive, but can
outrun a human over short distances

It does NOT swim, but runs along the
bottom of rivers and lakes

It does NOT hunt or eat meat or fish,
but grazes grass on shore and pulls aquatic vegetation to the surface
to chew on.

It is known in many quarters as the
most dangerous mammal in Africa. It kills more people than any of the
other large mammals including lion, elephant or buffalo.

I've done several canoeing trips on the
Zambezi River and avoiding hippo, by all means, is a major focus
every day. However, on safari in Kruger we are usually observing
hippo from a safe distance and from a vehicle.

Here in South Africa, we only find
hippo in a few places, mostly within the northern and eastern
conservation areas. This is mainly because we are a semi-arid country
and don't have a lot of suitable hippo habitat around.

So in general, finding and observing
hippo is pleasurably exciting, rather than terrifyingly nerve-racking.

Here are a few of my favourite hippo
photos, taken over the last 6 years........

Hippos and their calves

This jaw-to-jaw sparring session got quite serious.

Close to their "homes" hippo can get aggressive with any animal close to their size, as with this youngster first "yawning" at these Cape Buffalo, and then chasing them off!

But with the smaller animals, like these terrapin and African Jacana the hippo don't stir a whisker!

Most of the time hippo spend the day sleeping submerged in the water having spent each night grazing on shore. So we don't often get great views of hippo......

Occasionally we are very lucky and they come very close to my favourite Kruger "hide" - that's where many of these photos come from.

And as a last thought, I think there is a new collective name we could apply to hippo, specifically when they are sleeping out on the beach - a heap of hippo - very applicable, don't you think?